At first glance it can be difficult to determine whether a source is credible in its claims. There is a lot of flashy design or quality structure of writing that is used to hide dubious claims. But there are also different types of authority that inform the credibility of a source. A healthy skepticism of any source will allow you to make stronger arguments in your writing if you are able to substantiate any claims you make.
When evaluating any source it can be helpful to answer the following questions:
Who is the intended audience?
What authority does the author have to write on the topic covered? Is the author a freelance writer? A practitioner? A scholar?
What is the author's point of view (or of the publication as a whole)?
Who produced the material and why are they publishing this information?
Who funded this piece of work?
When was this written?
What are the key claims made? What evidence supports those claims?
Though it may seem like a lengthy task, as you practice evaluating the information presented to you the task becomes automatic.
We often encounter writing that intended to cause an emotional response. Whether that is a click-bait title or a claim that is partially true and easily repeatable, it's good to take a moment to pause and check the information. An easy method to use is SIFT:
Sometimes developing a research question can be overwhelming. Starting with broad inquiry can be incredibly helpful. If the professor has supplied a theme, use that theme as a starting point to answer these questions:
After your settle on a general topic, ask a lot of questions.
The best questions are:
My tentative question is: What does the green energy transition look like in the US?
While this might be a good place to start, it is also relatively broad. I might ask my professor or a librarian ways to narrow it effectively to meet the scope of my project.
Once you have a question, think about efficient ways to search for information. I like to start with a search table:
I'm going to select Web of Science for my search, because it is a database of scholarly works, related to engineering.
If I were to translate this search into Web of Science it would look like this:
In Web of Science you can select which field of the item you would like to search for these words in. Play with the options and see what results are best for you! My top choices are usually Topic, Title, and Abstract–depending on the combination you select (you can select a field for each line) you could get many results or very few!